


Into the Night

by thepapercrow



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dissociation, Fever Dreams, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Major Character Injury, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scuba Diving, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25544617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepapercrow/pseuds/thepapercrow
Summary: Arthur’s still healing from his encounter with Colm, but forces himself into action to earn some money for the gang. After heading off into the swamp alone, he ends up weak, feverish, and lost with some serious confusion regarding Dutch’s opinion of him.
Kudos: 39





	Into the Night

When he closes his eyes, Arthur usually just sees colors, shapes, but other times a gust of wind, the shapes of deer barreling past, of grass growing endlessly into the sky. There’s sound barraging him, pecking away, but he just floats above it. The first time he opens his eyes he almost cries out, so overwhelmed by what he sees- canvas is closing in, each individual thread reaching for his throat, his arms. He realizes he’s tied down. 

The sheets that hold him are gentle, not the metal vices of his dreams but he fights them. Keeps fighting till he sees figures, feels them as they sink their claws into him. No pain, but it’s worse, the blunt force pinning him down. He almost wishes it would hurt. 

He drifts away again.

-

Arthur doesn’t talk much when he’s finally well enough to sit and eat. He gets the odd visitor now and again, but after not offering much to them, the visits slowly wane. John still sometimes seeks him out and will rant to Arthur for hours about all manner of things. Abigail, Dutch, the weather. He doesn’t expect Arthur to respond- not since the first couple fumbling attempts to pull words from Arthur’s lungs, but he’s there. 

Charles also visits, helps Arthur rewrap his shoulder or shares the odd poultice. Neither of them talk much, but when Charles slips out, there’s always some small token that proved he’d been there. A carved animal, plant, or bundle of arrows. 

Others come through with anguished faces and soft words, but Arthur doesn’t give them much thought. Dutch hasn’t come by at all, that he can remember. Perhaps Arthur is just more forgetful now- another layer to his sickness. 

“Arthur,” Hosea says, gently tugging Arthur to look at him. “Do you think you can walk with to the shore?”

“Sure,” he says. And he does. He gets up slowly, Hosea holding him, the whole exercise spreading across the afternoon, the sun changing position, but he does it. 

-

The days go by and if the camp chatter is a bit more hushed and the soup a little thinner, nobody mentions it to him. He’d left his bag back in Colm’s camp- all his photographs, journal entries, tokens, and feathers, as he’d stumbled toward his horse, armed with only a knife. He itches for the pages, something to cling to, but he doesn’t mention it. He feels a lot better when working, watering the horses and feeding with the chickens. And his thoughts are clearer. 

When Dutch shows up and claps him on the back weeks later, Arthur doesn’t know how to respond.

“You seem better son,” Dutch says after a minute, confidence as thick as ever. 

“Yeah, feelin’ better,” Arthur says. He demonstrates by bending over and grabbing the bag of chicken feed, hiding the screeching emanating from his arm.

“That’s good, very good. A few of them were worried for a while there but I knew you’d be okay. You’re strong and there’s no way Colm of Driscoll of all people would take you down.” Dutch watches as Arthur continues to shake the chicken feed out onto the ground. “I was thinking Arthur, maybe you’d like to go out with me one of these days. Get your shooting back up to snuff.”

The offer hangs in the air and Arthur can’t breathe, his arm is threatening to give out. But Dutch had never been worried, why worry him now. Even when Arthur didn’t make it to the meeting point? How long had the man waited there before setting off to look for him? 

He’s not feeling strong at the moment, but Dutch doesn’t seem to notice. He always sees the best in Arthur, and Arthur feels guilty for falling short of that. Dutch is still looking at him expectantly. 

“It’s alright Dutch, I’ve been workin’ on it myself actually. Still a bit sore but I’m gettin’ by- was thinkin’ ‘bout headin’ out soon anyway, there’s a job.” Arthur’s heart beats furiously as he lies through his teeth, screaming at him to stop tarnishing the man in front of him with this betrayal of trust. But his mouth is continuing on its own, “no need to wor-” he cuts himself off. Dutch had said it himself, the man has faith in him.

-

The next day Arthur sets off before the sun rises, not wanting a concerned Hosea to stop him or a giddy Sean asking to come along. The goal is simple, find something of value to prove to Dutch that his faith isn’t misplaced. 

Arthur’s already tired by the time he hits Rhodes, but his horse Sparrow seems happy enough. He elects to stop by the general store and soon heads out wearing a sling he’s fashioned from a belt, he may look stupid, but the strain of his arm lessens. He roots around the town but comes up short.

He keeps heading forward when he finds nothing of worth in Rhodes, eventually electing to pass through the bayou to San Denis- it may be a sweltering and suffocating mass of slime and corruption, but there’s money to be had there and according to the man in the general store, it isn’t too from this direction.

But the longer he rides, the more confusing the paths becoming, some leading off into nothing but water, others looping back on themselves. Rope like vines hang down past these trails and threaten to string him up multiple times. The smell is even worse and the deeper he goes, the more cloying it becomes until it’s the only thing he can focus on, stumbling forward as he is. There a couple close calls with the fauna too, the snakes, and alligators, all desperate for some repose of their own. He’s not sure where the time’s gone though, noticing suddenly that the evening air is drifting in, the mosquitoes picking up their feasting dance.

But in his fixation on the buzzing, biting clouds, Arthur fails to look down, and when a water snake gets too curious and darts in front of the horse’s feet, Sparrow splashes away into the murk, sending Arthur flailing backwards right off her rump. He half manages to land on his feet by catching himself on an ivy ridden tree.

“Sparrow? Where are you girl?” he yells, but the horse is already lost in the darkening mist. “Girl?” His cries seem weak and Arthur can almost feel the press of vines from all around him, the sludgy ground giving way beneath. His arm is past pain and all his supplies are on that horse, except his knife, gun, and the clothes on his back. He stumbles forward in the direction Sparrow went but then he’s unsure, the only markers variations of the same damn tree. He’s feeling warmer and warmer, burning up in the dense foliage.

After walking what feels like miles, all Arthur wants is to sleep but the mud is almost to his knee now, the water layer even higher. If he were to try and sit, he’d surely just sink in and drown. He’s been in many odd and traitorous places, but this is something new altogether- even the air is liquid and he’s saturated. But he stumbles forward all the same. 

He knows he’s lost as he takes stock of the small patch of land he’s found. It’s probably only five feet across but when he kicks his heel into the earth, it doesn’t immediately give beneath his foot. Finally he can sit and come up with a plan. It’s full dark now and he wishes he had anything behind his back, a tree, rock, anything to protect himself. But there’s nothing like that, the dirt patch was barren and he’d need to keep watch over all 360 degrees of his island. 

After multiple attempts at arranging himself to best take the weight off his arm, he settles on lying on his back with his arms off to the sides. He can’t see the sky from here, just more mist and tangled green tendrils. He’ll need to wait for the sun. 

He nods off a couple times but each time is startled back by an odd sound. Once it’s an owl, then a water snake moving by him. He’s shivering but can’t move, the water is lapping at his boots and there’s nowhere to go save back into the water. 

His mind drifts back to his time in that basement, hanging. He’d rather be there. He was in pain then, but he could see and feel the closed in walls around him. Here there were no sure barriers, if he moves even a foot he’d be falling deep into the murk, who knows where he’d end up. And in the basement he had the knowledge that no matter how bad it got, Dutch was on his way to get him. In the swamp, Dutch will never find him. He’ll just disappear with nobody the wiser. Will they care? John and Hosea will, and maybe Charles- if all those gifts were gestures of genuine friendship and rather than just Charles’s innate goodness. 

The images return and Arthur doesn’t think anymore, just watches them above his eyes. His arm isn’t part of him anymore so it can’t hurt. 

-

The scream pulls him out, and he sits up automatically, jarring his arm. Crying now- sounds like a woman. Arthur pulls himself to his knees and looks around, trying to determine if the sound is just in his head or not. But there’s a light off in the distance- a campfire perhaps. He staggers to his feet and hesitates a moment before plunging into the muck. He knows he should call out, but he can’t. He thinks of stilted towering figures tucked into the trees and sliding like eels through the water.  
He approaches the light and soon the woman comes into view. She looks normal, like a human woman should and he feels himself calm down, faceless forms sliding away towards his peripheral. He finds a tree to stand behind and watches her, not knowing how much time passes.

“Ma’am, you alright?” his voice breaks the silence. Or perhaps that’s just in his head as the woman makes no move, continuing her wailing. “Ma’am, you okay ma’am?  
Talk to me.”

Suddenly, she’s on her feet, revealing a knife. Other specters materialize around her and she’s off, sprinting towards him with the knife extended.

“Oh shit!” he manages. The woman doesn’t move right, all weird angles and jerking turns as he draws his gun. She’s screaming and manic as she barrels into him but the shot that catches her stops the arch of her knife. But the fight isn’t over, four other men with guns are lose around him. Countless others could be out there. Arthur has trouble seeing them in the dim light, but they aren’t bound by the same laws and rush forward as Arthur lunges behind a tree. The first one makes the turn and Arthur’s gun is ready. But as he goes to pull the trigger, his index finger fails to move. The pain has been a constant but now his hand doesn’t even acknowledge him. 

He's kicks forward with his right leg instead, catching the man in the knee and sending him and his shot sideways as Arthur draws his knife with his left hand. The cuts are jagged and weak, ripping rather than slicing but after enough hacking the man is down. Alive but down. Arthur grabs the man’s gun in his left hand, leaving his to splutter out his last breathes in his muddy grave while he scans the trees for his next opponent.

But all is silent except the crackling of the firewood, no movement but the shadows dancing up from the fire, the vines swinging above.  
He continues to survey the clearing, there are at least two men out there. He should move on, but the fire is welcoming, and it may be the only chance for him to see should the men return. He almost nods off a couple times in pure exhaustion. 

Arthur is terrified and sweating, feels like he’s losing his mind, but through it, he knows he must check the bodies to make sure they’re real and not just some illusion. The woman is mostly consumed by the waters, but her arms are floating above the surface. He looks away, there’s a splashing sound and he jerks his eyes back to the arms. Had they moved? He can’t tell but the longer he looks the more he’s certain she’s alive down there, breathing in the filth and mud, filtering is through her lungs as easily as Arthur would air. 

“Ma’am?” he whispers as he gets to his feet. He marches over and in a clunky maneuver grabs her arm with his left hand to drag her out of the water and onto the little bank. She looks dead and her skin is waxy to the touch. Arthur considers the dead man behind the tree but is too tired, so he returns to his position and takes up his vigil. 

Small currents are rippling through the water and every now and then a sputtering sound arises, but Arthur can see no source, no explanation for the little bubbles that well up. When he hears the splash he bolts up but it’s too late, the hand wraps around his ankle and he is dragged into the water despite his clawing at the soft dirt bank. He’s fully under, can’t breathe and can feel countless hands grabbing onto him, his shoulder, his flailing legs. He sucks in the water in his panic as he feels the first sting of the knife plunging into him and fails to kick out with the weight on top of him. When a hand moves to his face in order to immobilize him for the next blow though, he can do nothing but sink his teeth into the flesh, tearing from side to side as he’d seen a dog treat a fox.

The grips weaken and he’s able to buck the weight off him. The second man once again disappears with a final slice down Arthur’s arm while Arthur fights the remaining figure in a frenzy, recalling the way the dead woman had contorted and flung herself onto him. He thinks of the men who tackled him and dragged him off to that basement, of the laughs and jeers, of Dutch- ‘I was never worried.’

With a shout, he finally is able to heave the man onto his back, half dragging him up the bank with the force of it. The left handed blows are clumsy, but after enough the man slumps down into unconsciousness. But Arthur doesn’t stop, just keeps hitting into him until the man had no features left, only a gory varnish of flayed flesh. Arthur is breathing hard by the time the man is dead, straddling him in a distorted embrace. 

And he’s furious, he can’t remember the last time he was this angry. He wants to keep hitting something but now his left arm is nearly as useless as the right. He instead pats the man down, throwing the limbs aside to roughly tear through the pockets. It’s clear he wasn’t the first victim this night from what he finds. A couple lockets, rings still attached to fingers, a checkbook, a small hollowed out tube. Arthur inspects the tube closer; it’s made of bone and at least 8 inches long. Had the men truly been beneath the surfaces like a pair of alligators, drifting closer and closer? 

Arthur looks out into the bayou frantically, unsure how many more could be out there. He draws his gun and with his left hand, somehow manages to shoot into the water blindly. Then again. And again. The only sounds around him are the bullets hitting the water and his own heavy breathing, his only defense the little stretch of beach. So he makes sure the two bodies are positioned around him in a ring, so any limbs grabbed would be those of their own. 

He wonders if anyone has noticed his absence. If anyone will set out after him. But Dutch knows he’s on a job, knows he’ll be fine. And that’s enough. 

-

The rest of the night passes in a daze and despite his efforts, Arthur falls into a deep sleep. The dreams are odd and vivid and when he wakes for the first time, he can’t say for certain he’s awake. He’s in camp, Dutch’s with him and he has been brought home and bandaged. “I found you son, against all odds I found you. I was worried.” But as Arthur looks around the camp, it morphs into something alive, churning. He sees the bodies piled high, enclosing him in a cocoon, sealing him off. Then he’s hanging and Dutch is gone. He awakens two more times in a sweat before he’s faced with the green morning light of the swamp.

If Arthur had been in pain before, today he feels buried in it- every inch of his body screaming out. His arms are covered in all manner of filth, his clothes torn. The two dead bodies looked scrawnier in the light, pitiful in death. From his sitting position Arthur does another survey of the corpse and adds a gold tooth to his plunder.  
Somehow Arthur gets to his knees and crawls over to the woman- she had nothing but a thin golden coil around her wrist. Arthur doesn’t even bother to unclasp it, choosing instead to tear the thing off her as is. The pocket watch he finds on the man slumped behind the tree is alone but is shiny enough, the name Reutlinger emblazoned on it. 

The journey out of the bayou is long but after an hour or so Arthur stumbles across the first path. He follows the winding dirt maze on foot for hours, but as he breaks through the tree line, into the first patch of solid ground and grass, Sparrow turns her head towards him, grass sticking out from her mouth and Arthur clambers towards her. 

With a final look back at the gloom of the swamp, Arthur turns his horse.  
“Come on girl, let’s get on home.” 

-

Arthur barely makes it to Rhodes before he falls. The concerned gazes of strangers above him fade away- he can’t bear their staring faces, distant voices. ‘You dead?’ one man seems to ask. 

-

When he next awakens, he’s inside, a damp cloth on his forehead. He looks over at the face saying his name.

“Doctor.”

“You’re awake, good! I was starting to fear for the worst, Mr. Callahan.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Arthur asks.

“What isn’t? I dressed your wounds-an onerous task mind you- as you tried to fight off that fever. Never felt a man burning so hot.”  
Arthur tries to move but gives up. “About money…”

“Nonsense sir. You saved me; this is just returning the favor.” Without giving Arthur the chance to respond, the Dr. Renaud continues, “The stab wounds were shallow, but I gave them an extra thorough wash down due to all the mud I found on your person. Stitched them up too.” He looks down at his notes. “The older wound on your shoulder didn’t break open luckily but you have torn something internally.” The doctor rearranges himself in the chair next to Arthur’s right side. “Can you try and make a first for me now, Mr. Callahan?”

Arthur tries his best to move his finger-willing them into motion-but his index finger only manages jerk upwards a few inches before coming to rest on the bed. The doctor frowns and Arthur stares at the ceiling. 

-

Arthur rides into camp later that same day after the fever breaks and he struggles to take a bath with the doctor’s supervision. The new shirt had long loose sleeves to cover the new injuries and his hair has been combed.

He collects some stew and deposits his weapons at his chest before heading over to the donation box, offerings in hand. “And there he is,” Dutch says, swooping in to watch the transfer of goods, “looks like you had a pretty good taking Arthur. Especially that watch!” Dutch inspects the thing closely, noticing each curled decoration and silver etching. “I knew you had it in you, keep up the good work.”

“Sure Dutch, I’ll head out again tomorrow.”

Arthur goes to sleep early that night and his fever soars again.


End file.
